Things certainly do not look very rosy for us Jews, Dr. Pernhard Weiss, the Berlin Police Vice-President, writes in an article in the “C. V. Weitung”, the official organ of the Central Union of German Citisens of Jewish Faith.
The backbone of German liberalism has been broken, Dr. Weiss says. Many of those who previously stood in the forefront of the fight against antisemitism have garden over to the enemy, and theo### no longer dare to raise their voice in protest against intolerance and antisemitism.
How do we German Jews stand, who belong, the over-whelming majority of us the Liberal ranks?
A certain number of German Jews have withdrawn from the political arena, discouraged, and refuse to join in the battle of resistance, let alone in the fight to maintain the principle of equality of rights and to beat down the disruptive spirit of antisemitism.
This tendency to withdraw from the fight is not a specifically Jewish fault. The German middle-class as a whole is in a state of political resignation. It has lost its idealism, and is plunged into disillusionment.
Never theless, Dr. Weiss says, we still have plenty of sturdy and upright Jews, whom all the terrors of the present time and all the force of politicalh### will not rob of their inborn optimism, and their proud self-consciousness.
If we German Jews throw away the instinct of self-preservation, and we make even the slightest concessions to our antisemitic opponents, we must not be surprised if there is before long an end to the hard-won achievement of Jewish emancipation and the equality of rights of the Jewish citizens of Germany.
I can well understand the Nazis being furious, Dr. Weiss says, when they see me, a German citizen of Jewish faith, as Acting Police Chief of Berlin, coming into the Reichstag to arrest Nazi Deputies, but what I cannot understand is that certain German Jews attack me for having gone at the head of my police into the Reichstag.
They think that because I am a Jew I should have kept out of it. Several Jews have made no secret about it that this is how they feel. One Jew, who is the editor of a Berlin paper, which has hitherto been considered a Democratic organ, has said to me that in times like the present a Jew must avoid doing anything which will bring him into collision with the Nazis. To draw the attitude of this editor to its logical conclusion, would mean that Jews must give up all the positions which we have won by our fight for Jewish emancipation, and in the end it will result in establishing a political ghetto.
Do not the people who take such an attitude understand that they are actually furnishing weapons for the arsenal of the antisemites?
A Jew who holds a Government position, according to this conception, must not carry out the dutires which fall upon him because of his position if it means acting against enemies of the Jews. The natural conclusion from this is that no Jew may hold any State position which may lead him into conflict with antisemites. In other words, no Jew may be an administrative official, a judge, or any other executive officer of the State. If that is conceded, the antisemites would be perfectly entitled to demand that every other post should be closed to Jews.
A wave of antisemitism has swept over the German Fatherland, and not a single Jew can escape it, Dr. Weiss Writes. But there would be nothing more unworthy, more pitiful, than for us to retire from the fight for lack of courage.
If we accept the arguments of our antisemitic enemies, even if only for the purpose of compromise, it will open the road for our enemies to carry their ultimate aims into effect.
The more we are attacked, Dr. Weiss says, the more strongly and the more courageously we German citizens of Jewish faith must resist. We must stand at our posts. Do our enemies what they will, we must stand unflinchingly at our posts and defend the interests of the whole of our German people. We must do our duty till we fall. The word is, everyone to his place.
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